One of the most sought after TLD's ".blog" launched last week, after a hotly contested and secretive bidding process that finally saw the rights go to the company behind WordPress.com, Automatic.

The word "blog" has, for well over a decade, been related to a personal space located on the web. Space where you can add your inner thoughts and opinions for public perusal. Of course, the meaning has now extended to the ideas, opinions, articles and other related information not only as a personal website but for business too.

As of the 21 November, you can now purchase the .blog top level domain, and make use of this iconic word and the connotations it projects as your domain name.

The great thing about the .blog domain is that it is a TLD. That is a top level domain. This means it is not country specific and can be used to promote content all around the world. Just like the .com domain.

There are no restrictions on owning the .blog domain, and pricing starts at $23.88 per year at Namecheap, or $27.99 ($39.99 on renewal) at GoDaddy. It appears there are some variances in price, with Namecheap being the most competitive (at least out of the companies we searched).

If you are wondering whether a .blog is suitable for your business or project, they make a great choice for the following:

Media outlets

Writers& Poets

Broadcasters

Filmmakers

Politicians

Churches& nonprofits

Communities

Of course, any person or business could create a blog about themselves, or topics related to their business.

Furthermore, these may be so sought after, that even if you have the .com version of the domain, you may want to reserve the .blog version for possible future use also.

Fierce bidding process to acquire rights to sell the .blog TLD

The .blog domain was sold at a private auction in February 2015, after an intense bidding process involving companies such as Google, M+M, Radix, and Donuts. Under a cloak of anonymity, the winning bidder was for some time only known as Primer Nivel.

It was only when Automattic founder, Matt Mullenweg, said in a blog post in May 2016, that the real identity of the purchaser became known. Here is an extract of his announcement:

It’s now public that Automattic is the company behind Knock Knock Whois There LLC, the registry for the new .blog TLD. (And a great pun.) We wanted to stay stealth while in the bidding process and afterward in order not to draw too much attention, but nonetheless the cost of the .blog auction got up there (people are estimating around $20M).

ICANN approved the reassignment of the .blog contract from Primer Nivel to Knock Knock WHOIS There on April 29. You can just imagine the smug faces on the marketing team that came up with that name.

Although WordPress.com is currently providing the registration information website at get.blog, according to WPTavern, Mark Armstrong indicated that the company is using Nominet (the backend registry provider for .UK) to provide the technical infrastructure for managing the domain extension.